The Opera House

In Sydney, Austrailia my family and I went to the Opera House and saw the Opera Aida! The Opera was really nice but late so I fell asleep for about 15 minutes! A day before we went to the Opera we walked the Harbor Bridge in Sydney (somtimes called the "coat hanger") and got a very good veiw of the Opera House!

When we got in the Opera House it was HUGE!!!! It was very busy inside and full of people with food and drinks. When we got into the room were the Opera would be going on it was noisy and starting to fill up with people. We had kind of high seats but they were still good because I could still see everything fine! The Opera was about 3 hours long and had 3 breaks. On stage it was very nice because there was real water up there, only shalow but it was still there!

The auditorium we were in had only cement walls. It was all quite plane around us. The people on stage didn't have to sing very loudly and still their voices would ecco around the room loud and clearl!

Going to the Opera was a lot of fun and was a once in a life time experience so I'm glad we went even though I fell asleep in the end!

-No Worries Elena!

Scuba at the Great Barrier Reef

On our trip to Australia we went to the Great Barrier Reef. We stayed on a live on board boat for three days. Previously in New Zealand I had gotten my diving license, but diving in new Zealand and diving in Australia are two different things (meaning Australia is better). Here are a few things I thought were amazing about scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef.

1. You can be under 20 feet and think its only 5-10 feet to the surface.
2. Fish are swimming everywhere!
3. Fish will get really close to you!
4. The Reef is so big, I don't think anyone could ever explore the whole thing.
5. You're always finding new things you didn't see before. (so you will never get bored)
6. There are thousands of different fish, coral, sharks, squid, turtles........ etc.

I only did one dive a day, but my dad did about 13 throughout the whole trip. I saw two sharks. It was really exciting to be swimming with sharks in open water instead of in a pool at Disney where the sharks don't actually have any teeth "for your own safety". Over all I thought scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef was a lot of fun and a great experience.

- Damon

The Zoos we went to in Australia

In Australia we went to two zoos. Both zoos had only animals native to Australia. The first one was in Sydney, the second in Cairns.
We got to see kangaroos eat and pet a kangaroo. They are really soft, they seemed kind of lazy. The kangaroos didn't hop a lot. They used their tale by standing on their back legs and then lifting themselves up with their tales.
We also got to see some koalas and some had joeys on their backs. We pet a koala and it had really thick fur, they were also soft. They were cute and looked cuddly!
We got to feed a cassowary. A cassowary is a bird in the ostrich family. They had blue and green necks and black long fur on their body. They had a horn thing on their head. They had large eggs that were a light green color. The cassowary is an endangered species.
We also saw quoles and they were like a cat and a tasmanian devil together. We got to see them be fed and they were brown and had long tails. They are also endangered.
We got to pet a 1 1/2 year old crocodile, it was smooth with bumps. We also got to go on a boat on a river and watch big crocodiles get fed. They jumped out of the water to get the raw chicken. When they snapped their jaws shut it made a loud biting noise. It was lots of fun.

- Maddie